Ottawa unveils strategy for the '90s

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The federal government has unveiled a strategy to fight AIDS in the 1990s that includes spending $6 million on a computerized information system for victims seeking treatment and $7 million on education.

But a spokesman for Gays and Lesbians of the First Nations says it doesn't go far enough to battle the disease at the community level.

Claude Charles says Ottawa has to pump more money into programs aimed at high-risk, special interest groups like the country's aboriginal people who can't get information like mainstream society.

He says the federal government refuses to recognize AIDS as more than just a white man's disease.

"They're not making any commitment to provide help for first nations," he says.

"There's got to be more help at the community levels. That should be the priority."

Health Minister Perrin Beatty announced the AIDS package called the Treatment Information System for AIDS/HIV infection.

He also pledged $112 million over the next three years for research and advanced treatment for AIDS.

Charles says that commitment won't help Native people, who don't know how AIDS is contracted or passed on in the first place.

He says his 127-member, Toronto-based group was expecting more from the government to help rural and isolated Natives.

Grant McNeil, a spokesman for the Ottawa-based Canadian AIDS Society, an umbrella group for lobbyists around the country, says the new package "is a step forward," but it's not a strong as he expected.

He says Beatty has once again ignored Native people on the funding agenda.

"That it doesn't have more funding with it is a serious problem that will have to be addressed," he says.

"Money should be set aside for targeted educational programs for the indigenous people of this country."

Other initiatives of the three-year program include spending $10 million for new drugs and $7 million for community-based, non-governmental AIDS groups. An AIDS secretariat to co-ordinate programs between federal departments will also be created.